Singer Mindy McCready Dies in Suspected Gun Suicide, 37

U.S. country star Mindy McCready, who has been found dead in a suspected suicide, is shown performing at the Greased Lightning Daytime Stages during the 2008 CMA Music Festival on June 5, 2008 at Riverfront Park in Nashville, Tennessee. Source: Frederick Breedon/WireImage/ Getty Images via Bloomberg.

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Mindy McCready, a U.S. country
singer whose hits included “Guys Do It All the Time,” has died
in a suspected suicide, police in Arkansas said today.

Officers were called to McCready’s Heber Springs house
after shots were heard. They found the 37-year-old singer dead
on the front porch with an “apparent self-inflicted gun wound,”
Cleburne County Sheriff’s Office said in an e-mailed release.

In January, the star’s boyfriend David Wilson was also
found on the same porch with what appeared to be a self-inflicted shot wound. His death is also being investigated. The
record producer was a father to her younger son, who was born
last year.

“He didn’t just touch my heart, he touched my soul,”
McCready said of Wilson in a television interview this year. She
said she wasn’t involved in his death.

McCready arrived in Nashville in 1994 with tapes of her
karaoke vocals. “Guys Do It All the Time” was a knowing look at
male egos and one of 12 country hits.

Her career was soon overshadowed by headlines about her
personal life.

She claimed a long affair with baseball star Roger Clemens,
which he denied. She was also romantically linked to actor Dean
Cain, hockey player Drake Berehowsky and songwriter Billy
McKnight, father of her eldest son. After a violent argument,
McKnight was at one stage charged with her attempted murder but
the two later had a son together before parting.

Custody Battle

She fought a battle for custody of that son who was being
cared for by her McCready’s mother in Florida. In 2006 the
singer grabbed the child and took him back to Arkansas where she
was found hiding in a cupboard with him.

McCready was in trouble with the law for drunk driving and
fraudulently trying to obtain painkillers from a pharmacy. She
was ordered to undergo rehabilitation and was discharged last
week, while her sons stayed in foster care.

The star’s last album was released in 2010 after an eight-year break, titled “I’m Still Here.”

Local television reports said McCready shot her beloved
family dog on the porch just before turning the gun on herself.

(Mark Beech writes for Muse, the arts and leisure section
of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)